


Putting Nightmares To Use

by Potatoad



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dreams and Nightmares, Hurt Tony Stark, Iron-Spider Suit, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Protective Tony Stark, Self-Esteem Issues, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is trying his best, Tony Stark-centric, during homecoming, peter parker needs to be protected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-10 21:54:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20142577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potatoad/pseuds/Potatoad
Summary: Tony had been having nightmares almost nightly after Afghanistan, with no amount of therapy or prescription drugs preventing them. But when his mind starts concocting ways in which to kill his new protege, Peter, over and over again in front of him, he tries to put those sleepless nights of terror to good use for once.





	Putting Nightmares To Use

His hands shook as he typed in yet another line of coding. He couldn’t help but think that it was beginning to happen a bit too often. Still, his fingers tapped away at the keys, the glare of the screen becoming increasingly obnoxious as the minutes passed. He was almost there. He could feel the lingering presence of sweat between him and the tank top he hadn’t had the chance to change. Now with every spin of the hologram and shift in his arms, he could feel it clinging to him like a second skin. He took a second to rub at his eyes, yet one hand remained pinned to the keyboard.

He could still see the flashes, behind his closed eyes. The cold, icy white was there too. He was stuck, arms pinned by his sides as the frost overtook him. He didn’t even have his suit. He could only watch as he began to freeze over. He could feel his skin turning blue, with his three-piece doing nothing against the cold and his breathes were shallow. He could only watch as Peter was pulled down mid-swing. Spandex wasn’t made for such a fall, nor for the negative temperature of the air surrounding them both. He could hear the cry of pain as it echoed around the icy structures that had come to decorate the buildings of downtown New York. He grabbed at his mask desperately, trying to remove it. Tony’s heart clenched. His identity was so important to him, but Tony could have told you, just from the irregular rise and fall of his chest that he couldn’t breathe.

If only he had Tony’s suit, if only Tony hadn’t been such an idiot to take it away from him. He was stuck, winded and trapped. This was his fault. This was all his fucking fault. His small wrist flicked, over and over but nothing came out. The frustration was obvious as he began to smack at the web-shooters. Tony’s exhale was even shakier this time.

“C’mon Peter,” He mumbled under his breath.

There was a crash to his right. His eyes darted over, only to confirm his worst fear. It was here. The icy tentacles of the beast had begun to slide from building to building and through the empty street. Peters movements were far more frantic now, had he even noticed the monsters approach? Even if he had, what use would it do? His web-shooters were frozen. Peter seemed to be realising that too as he began to look left and right desperately. Tony had could feel his body tense. But neither of them had noticed the approach the thing had made from behind.

Peter’s spidey-sense kicked in only a second too late, when as he spun, the icy ropes darted out and grabbed him, dragging him down towards the tarmac. He flinched as his body hit the ground, the thud sickening. The scream that was wrenched from his throat would be forever etched into his mind. He could feel the bile rise in his throat.

The little air Tony felt like he had in his lungs had dissipated, his throat closing up, not allowing him to call out. He tried to shout, scream, anything but nothing escaped. And so he began to shift, pushing against the ice that had barricaded him in so tightly. His body felt frozen but still, he pushed, his cries echoing around his head. But it was useless. His last weak attempt only led to him falling against the cold, unable to hold himself up and longer. He let out one last silent scream, a sad attempt to catch the boy’s attention. The same boy who was becoming a sickly and concerning shad of blue. A sob wracked through his body.

His fists clenched and unclenched, useless without the gauntlets. Just like he was useless without the gauntlets. Just like he was useless without the suit. Peter’s flailing had become desperately weak. Tony could only squeeze his eyes shut to try and stop the tears. The boy could catch a chill with the AC on too high, never mind this. For once his sensitivities were proving to be a downfall. Or maybe his downfall was trusting Tony Stark in the first place. The kid should have never been out here in the first place, Tony should’ve just let him stay in his neighbourhood.

Tony was glad at first when the boy had stripped himself of his mask, yet now, Tony hated that he did. All he could see were those wide, tear-stained eyes, watching, defeated as this monster overcame him.

“Kid, no, please no,” Tony whispered.

Peter’s head turned fast enough to give him whiplash as he gasped.

“Mr Stark!”

It broke his heart how hopefully the kid looked at him. He looked at him like he had created the world, to begin with. He was the only one to ever look at him like that anymore. Everyone else had realised how much of a fuck-up he was already.

“Please Mr Stark,” the kid pleaded through tears, “please, you have to get us out of here, it's dangerous and cold, it's so cold Mr Stark please.”

There was no point in Tony even trying to stop the tears at this point.

“Kid, I-“ His head fell, unsure of how to end the sentence.

I’m a disappointment?  
I fucked up?  
I should’ve been able to protect you?  
The list was endless.

The understanding the crossed Peter’s face is a look that no kid should ever have to give anyone. He only smiled at Tony sadly.

“It’s- It’s okay Mr Stark.”

Tony wished he could close the twenty or so metres between them, to hold him, to tell him it was going to be okay. Just as equally, he wished he could bring himself to look away, to save himself the suffering.

“M-Mr. Stark.”

Tony flinched.

“I’m scared, Mr Stark”

“I- I know Peter, I know, it’s going to be okay though, I promise,” he assured, the lies slipping so terribly easy from his mouth, “It’ll be over soon kid, it’ll be okay.”

“Mr Stark please,” he said, as he began to cry again, somehow wiggling an arm free enough to reach it out towards him desperately, “please, I’m scared. I don’t, I don’t want to die, please.”

“You’ll be okay Peter,” he choked, “I’ll make things right, I promise I’ll make things right, I always do kid, it’ll be okay. Just relax for me, will you Pete?”

The boy nodded and the silence the descended was deafening. He hated how easy it had become to lie. He hated that this was their day job. He hated that Peter was only a kid. He had so much left to live for, so much that he wouldn’t get to see. God, he was only a kid.

“I’m sorry Mr Stark,”

Peter’s eyes were becoming distant now, their hope, lost.

“What? No, Peter, no, this is not your fault, this was never your fault, you did everything you could, you did amazingly kid, you did everything right,” he insisted, “I’m sorry. I’m the one that should be sorry.”

The corners of Peter's lips twitched softly as he shook his head no.

“Thank you, so much for everything Tony,” he said, his voice, barely a whisper, “thank you.”

The boy's eyes slipped shut, his hands fell limp, the struggle in his frame nowhere to be seen.

Tony screamed so loud he woke himself up. Possibly with half the compound too.

Like most nights these days, he had wound up working his way down to his lab. Workshopping ideas, then typing, fixing and editing them until the small hours of the morning. The upgrades were more than necessary and he hated the Ambien prescription anyways.

“JARVIS, lower the screen brightness will ya bud?”

“Of course Mr Stark,” the AI replied.

This time, when his eyes opened, the room far more palatable for the sleep-deprived migraine he was sporting. He finalised the last few lines of his code as he drained his cup of coffee and took a final step back. It was no wonder the kid was getting concerned with the bags under his eyes. He drew his hands together, downsizing the new Iron-Spider blueprint before him.

“JARVIS?”

“The Iron-Spider suit can now be exposed to a temperature of 180 Kelvin before Mr Parker will even feel a thing, Mr Stark.”

Tony nods in acknowledgement, his expression objectively blank. He flicks his finger, from left to right, spinning the suit one final time. He had taken to ignoring the list of recent adjustments in his peripheral and on the right-hand side of the screen.

“How many night-time improvements has it been now JAR?”

“My calculations estimate around 82 sir, that’s if we aren’t counting the suits initial creation, base set and initial 30 unique features. Those were also completed out of hours sir.”

His nightmares weren’t useful when it came to trying to run a company but it kept Peter safe in its own twisted way. Besides, he’d been running of no sleep since his early twenties and things had turned out fine enough. And with every twisted monster, Tony’d mind supplied, an extra layer of defence was added to the boy's suit, another layer of protection. Tony just wished he didn’t have to watch the kid die every time.

He peeled off his shirt, throwing it somewhere across the room for Dum-E to pick up later. This kid was his responsibility now, it was his job to keep him safe. There was no way in hell Tony was going to let him make the same mistakes he had. No, he was going to be better than he ever could be, and if that meant restless nights for the rest of his life, he’d take it. Peter wasn’t going to be caught off guard, not as he had with Vanko or with Hammer. Never. No-one was going to be able to lay a finger on Peter Parker ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware it would probably be FRIDAY at this point running things but I have a soft spot for JARVIS so :P
> 
> Any feedback is always appreciated and thanks for reading :)


End file.
